Jhunjhunu police bust fake telephone exchange, three arrested

The police said that the arrested trio was earning money from each call by charging 15 paise per minute for each ISD calls.

Police said they are investigating to find out if the system was being used for anti-national activities.(AP)

The Jhunjhunu police have arrested three people for allegedly running an international call diverting racket using voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology, a top police official said on Friday.

Four machines that were being used to divert the phone calls, each costing more than ₹ 1 lakh, have been confiscated, said Jhunjhunu superintendent of police Manish Agarwal.

“We received information about an illegal telephone exchange where ISD calls were being re-routed to make the calls look like local calls,” he said.

“Preliminary investigation suggests that lakhs of calls were being made every day using VoIP platform.”

“The arrested trio was earning money from each call by charging 15 paise per minute for each ISD calls,” said Balraj Singh Mann, station house officer of Nawalgarh police station.

“Due to the sheer number of calls, each of them earned anywhere between ₹30,000 and ₹40,000 every month,” he said.

The three accused have been identified, as Manoj, Suresh Kumar and Subhash alias Parveen, all residents of Nawalgarh and were arrested on Thursday night, police said.

“Preliminary investigation suggests that the trio bought the machines from Mumbai. During interrogation we have learnt that a man named Wasim Ahmed sold them the machines,” said Mann.

Police said they are investigating to find out if the system was being used for anti-national activities.

“It is also possible that people living abroad were using the system to talk with their family members in India without paying ISD call charges. More details will come up as the probe progress,” said Agarwal.